


Soft as Snow

by Applesandbannas747



Category: Fence (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21679681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747
Summary: Kings Row has a snow day.
Relationships: Nicholas Cox/Seiji Katayama
Comments: 30
Kudos: 110





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Sinterklaas y'all 💜 This fic has....absolutely nothing to do with any holidays at all BUT writing it today was my gift to me this year so yeah, happy Sinterklaas!

From: Linda Eisler < l.eisler@krschools.us >

Subject: Snow Day

To: kr-students@lists.krschools.us; kr-staff@lists.krschools.us

Wednesday, December 5th, 2018

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

Due to the significant winter storm last night, road and travel conditions are unsafe. All Kings Row School District classes and club activities have been canceled today as a result. Please stay safe and enjoy your snow day. We'll see you back at school tomorrow!

Best regards,

Linda Eisler

Linda Eisler,

_Principal, Kings Row Boys School_

605–475–6961

l.eisler@krschools.us

[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/03a33f5e990c610604939637fdfc90ec/7f30c2deb522fb0d-90/s250x400/1b4dc3b9ef23fa89a41090796dbe7e54244a111a.png)  


Nick woke up early. His groan as he dragged himself out of bed was loud and sustained and over-the-top dramatic because Seiji wouldn’t be here to be bothered by it. Actually, not bothering Seiji was never Nick’s priority so even if the bed he passed on the way to the bathroom _had_ been occupied, Nick wouldn’t have cared.

It was miserably dark outside and Nick knew it would be bitterly cold, that storm last night had been intense. But Nick needed the extra time practicing his technique which meant he was going out in the dark, cold, snowy morning to get to the gym. Besides, Seiji was gone and Nick wasn’t about to wimp out of the walk if Seiji had made it. So he pulled on all his layers and got to it.

Just as predicted, the air was so cold that Nick’s lungs forgot how to use the air he breathed in when he first stepped out of the dorms. But his mood brightened when his eyes adjusted to the dark and he saw the light, fluffy snow piled high and the wicked icicles hanging off roofs and trees. It made him want to find a hill and a sled or build a snowman or make a snow angel. Bobby could probably be convinced into playing in the snow later. Some others could be persuaded if there were snowball fights involved, Nick was sure.

Nick was still caught up in thoughts about the glorious opportunities the day held with a landscape like this when a figure marred it. It was walking toward him with a gait that Nick always thought gave away a willingness to plow people over. Seiji. Nick kept walking, slowing when Seiji was level with him.

“Get cold feet?” Nick asked. “Leave Dmytro at the alter?”

“The gym’s locked,” Seiji said briskly, hardly pausing at all. Nick looped around to follow.

“What? Why?”

“Nobody bothered to unlock it.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you read your emails?” Seiji asked with disapproval. “School’s canceled. Club activities too.”

“For real?” Nick was already smiling. He’d _just_ been thinking about how much fun he could have in this snow and now Seiji was telling him it was a snow day? It made him feel warm toward Seiji just for delivering the good news.

“Yes. The roads are terrible, four crashes this morning already. Dmytro’s not coming, of course, but I _was_ hoping Coach Williams might have unlocked the gym.”

“Does she live on campus?”

“I’ve no idea.”

Nick laughed and Seiji shot him a quick glare. Nick shut up but he didn’t stop smiling.

“So we’ve got the whole day, huh? To frolic and play to our heart's content?”

“I’ll leave the frolicking and playing to you,” Seiji said dryly. “I might not be able to fence today but there are still more productive uses of my time than…whatever it is you have planned.”

Nick thought about that—plans. He might go back to bed. Nobody else would be up this early and snow activities weren’t as fun without friends. Plus, he should take advantage of the free morning. But now that he was up and out and pumped on the prospect of spending the day playing in the snow, he’d rather skip right to the fun. He wanted to build a fort or grab one of those icicles and—

“Aha!” Nick said, flinging off his bag and causing Seiji to startle a little. He made a dash to the ice adorned tree branch he’d just spotted and broke off a long icicle.

Running back to Seiji, he jabbed his improvised blade out, shouting “ _En Garde!”_ delightedly. Seiji looked extremely offended. And pretty baffled, too. Like a cat that had just been rudely woken up from a nap when someone tried to pet it. It made Nick laugh again.

“Whoever said you can’t fence today?” Nick said, swiping his icicle towards the tree. “Choose your weapon, sir, I challenge you to a duel.”

“No.” Seiji kept walking. Nick should have known he’d be a killjoy. But he was also the only one around and Nick was in the mood for fun.

“You’re just scared you’ll lose to me,” he jeered at Seiji’s back.

“You can’t even beat me in the best of conditions, Nicholas,” Seiji called over his shoulder. Nick paced back to the tree, chose another suitable icicle and broke it off.

“You’re spoiled,” Nick called, meandering after Seiji. “You’ve never had anything but _the best of conditions._ Bet you I win with you out of a fancy salle.”

Seiji had stopped, just as Nick had predicted he would. When he turned around, Nick was right there to greet him with a grin and an out held icicle. Seiji took it, discarding his bag with only slightly more care than Nick had dropped his with.

“Shall we?” Seiji asked, falling into stance. Nick did the same.

“Let’s.”

The snow up past their ankles immediately caused some fuck-ups and shoddy footwork but Seiji wasn’t any better at navigating in the snow than Nick was so it was funny instead of frustrating. He thought he saw a smile off Seiji too, even with all the wading through snow. Plus, Seiji hadn’t left yet so Nick thought he must be enjoying himself to some extent.

Nick lunged and, although he did score a point, he skidded into a much deeper lunge than he’d really intended or wanted to. Seiji laughed. A tiny huff of air paired with a slight upward tilt to his lips. It totally counted as a laugh coming from Seiji.

“Told you,” Nick said, “Two to one. I’m winning.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Seiji retorted, narrowly missing Nick. He only missed because his icicle slid in his grip. That was the trouble with blades that melted. Seiji glared fiercely at his like that would actually make it shape up.

Nick got in another hit during his distraction but Seiji scored before retreating. They were wearing down their own little strip. Not a very good one, but all that trampling had packed down a good amount of the snow. It was getting a little easier to move his feet but Nick’s hands were freezing, especially the one wrapped around his icicle. He didn’t mind.

“I’m impressed,” Nick called.

“You shouldn’t be.”

“Get off your high horse, I mean I’m impressed you haven’t broken your icicle yet.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Seiji repeated, cold ice glancing off the inside of Nick’s wrist. _Damn,_ that had been a rookie mistake on his part. “I have impeccable control over my blade.”

“Uh-huh. I’m still winning, though.”

“You are not—,”

Nick hit, pulling him ahead of their tie. Six to five. It was the best he’d ever done against Seiji but he didn’t care all that much about the score, was mostly speaking for the sake of speaking. This wasn’t a real match and pulling ahead in it didn’t mean much. It was like play-fighting. It suddenly occurred to Nick that he could push the _play_ aspect even further.

When Seiji lunged, Nick thwacked the thick base of his icicle against the thin tip of Seiji’s, breaking off a good portion of it.

“You came a little bit short there,” Nick said, grinning at Seiji’s fully extended arm and the icicle that couldn’t reach him. Then he easily reached his blade inside Seiji’s guard and took another point. “That’s seven to me.”

“That’s—you can’t do that,” Seiji protested, recovering from his lunge and glowering at Nick. “That’s against every rule, it doesn’t count.”

“Does too. This isn’t épée. It’s icée.”

“I say?”

“No— _icée._ Like épée but with ice, get it? It’s funny.”

“It certainly _is_ funny that you think you’re any good at jokes.”

“Yeah, whatever. Yours works too, actually.”

“What?”

“I say. That works too because _I say_ that there’s no such thing as a strip in icée!” And Nick hopped right out of their trodden down strip, circling around Seiji in a sprint and stabbing him in the back with maniacal laughter.

“You—!” Seiji spun and jabbed but his icicle was woefully short. With a frustrated shout, Seiji lobbed the remainder of it at Nick. It hit him square in the chest. “That’s eight-six.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Nick hooted.

“What I’m _getting_ is another blade. Stay,” he commanded, pointing an accusing finger at Nick as he backed away, edging toward the supply of icées. Nick snorted and stayed perfectly and obligingly still. Until Seiji turned around. But Seiji must have known Nick would betray him because he was already running before he could have known for sure that Nick was jogging after him, brandishing his weapon.

As soon as Seiji had a new icicle, he brought the score up to 8-7. Nick grabbed another icicle too and attempted to dual-wield for a time before finding it more difficult than it was worth. He took a bite off his old, melty icicle—Seiji looked disgusted—and threw it aside.

All rules were out the window and there was as much running and sneaking and illegal tricks as there was anything that resembled proper fencing. Seiji was rosy-cheeked from all the running and the cold couldn’t have helped either. Nick was sure he looked about the same. They’d been at it for long enough that the sky had started to lighten a little. And, to Nick’s surprise, he noticed that it was snowing again. It had been so faint and soft that he hadn’t noticed it in his distraction. Speaking of…

Nick bolted at Seiji, catching him by surprise after lulling him into a false sense of security. Seiji brought up his blade but, hilariously, the icicle went flying out of Seiji’s hand. It looked awfully red and Nick could sympathize—cold fingers were not particularly adroit and melty ice was not particularly easy to grip. But that didn’t stop him from barking a laugh before taking full advantage. He scored about ten hits on Seiji’s chest, forcing him to back up in an effort to avoid the attack. But he lost his footing in the snow and fell heavy into it.

“Do you surrender?” Nick asked, positioning his icicle right over Seiji’s heart. Seiji looked up at him from his position laying in the snow. Even now, his eyes were fierce, his face proud.

“Never,” he growled.

“Hm,” Nick nodded, he’d expected no less from Seiji Katayama. He dragged his blade across Seiji’s chest to the base of his neck, then traced the tip up his throat. Seiji shivered and the witty quip Nick had planned to say escaped him as he stared at his icicle, now tipping Seiji’s chin up. His eyes slid treacherously upward.

“That’s _cold_ , _”_ Seiji said, only milliseconds after the shiver had run its course. And then he flung a huge handful of snow right in Nick’s face. Nick dropped the icicle in surprise and shook off the snow, only to be hit with more.

“That’s—,” Nick started but when he’d cleared his eyes and set them to glare at Seiji, he found him laughing.

Seiji’s smile was huge, pushing up his cheeks and softening the edges of his eyes. Nick’s words left him again, abandoning him to standing and staring.

“You’ve got snow in your hair,” Seiji said, laughter mostly—but not entirely—reined in.

“Whose fault do you think that is?” Nick asked, not sounding grouchy at all. Because he wasn’t. He laughed too, throwing himself down into the snow next to Seiji. “Hey, now that I’ve got white hair, you’ve gotta call me Saint Nicholas.”

“That’s not even a real joke,” Seiji accused but his smile was still in his voice.

“Right. And you’re just laughing because it’s so funny that I think I’m any good at jokes.”

“Precisely,” Seiji agreed.

They both fell quiet then, looking up at the brightening sky and the timidly falling snow. It was pretty. And this had been fun. _Really_ fun. Snow days were something else. He wouldn’t have thought he could enjoy Seiji’s company this much.

“I can’t feel my fingers,” Seiji said. Nick recognized it for what it was. Wasn’t surprised to hear Seiji adjusting—standing up, most likely—next to him. The morning had come to an end and it was time to get back to the regularly scheduled program.

“Yeah.” Nick wasn’t sure what else to say. Bye? See you later? Let’s do this again sometime? He closed his eyes against the rising sun. Against the ending morning.

Something brushed against his mouth, soft as snow.

“Thank you for this morning.”

Nick could feel the displacement of air as Seiji actually stood up, and by the time he’d opened his eyes, finally comprehending the impossible and barely-there touch, Seiji was already halfway to his bag. Nick scrambled to his feet.

“Hey, wait! Seiji!” Nick called, desperate to get Seiji to stop. He hadn’t actually expected Seiji to listen to his request, but Seiji stopped to look back at him. “Do you want to maybe go steal some hot chocolate from the kitchens and watch cheesy movies under, like, fifty blankets…or something?”

Seiji smiled again, not the broad and uncontrolled one that had come with laughter; this smile was much subtler than that one had been, but it softened his eyes just the same.

“Yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

Seiji’s hands had been so frozen, it had actively hurt getting them to thaw out again. In fact, he’d been so cold when they’d come in that even now, after an unreasonably long hot shower, he still didn’t feel warm. He dressed in his warmest and softest pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved sweater and _still_ felt cold. This was why he didn’t like snow. It seeped into your bones and _stayed_ there. What had possessed him to stay out in it so long?

But, of course, he knew the answer to that question and it made him feel a little warm, just not in any sort of way Seiji wanted to be warm.

Stepping out of the bathroom, Seiji nearly tripped. He wasn’t clumsy or prone to stumbles and it was not his own feet that had tripped him but what seemed to be a large tent set up across his room. He’d nearly ran right into it.

“What in the—,” Seiji said, taking in the sheet hung up on the curtain line that ran down the middle of the room, its other end tucked under the boxspring of Seiji’s bed. Something else about his bed didn’t look right either. “Nicholas, what have you done?”

“Come in here,” Nicholas’s voice answered from within the questionable structure. Then his face appeared, pulling aside the sheet. He was grinning up at Seiji, beckoning for him to come in with his free hand. When Seiji didn’t move to do any such thing, Nicholas sighed and let the sheet fall back down.

“This is an extravagant mess to clean up.” But there wasn’t much to do about it now.

A hand darted out and grabbed his ankle, startling Seiji enough to put him in danger of tripping _again._

“I’ll drag you under if you don’t come in,” Nicholas warned and Seiji thought he probably would.

“Fine,” he said, giving his leg a shake, “let go.”

“Welcome to the fort,” Nicholas said proudly as Seiji slipped inside it. He’d used the duck curtain as the other wall, tucked under the matching bed to Seiji's. Then Seiji saw what Nicholas was sitting on. A whole hoard of blankets, piled higher than the snow had been. And—

“Is that my _mattress?”_ Seiji asked. No wonder his bed hadn’t looked right.

“Yup. Mine too, see? Come here and sit,” Nicholas patted a spot on the mattresses he’d pulled off both their beds to push together on the floor. It wasn’t the most hygienic idea in Seiji’s eyes. The dorm’s floor wasn’t clean enough for him to want his mattress directly on it. But he was still chilly and the large nest of blankets tempted him into doing as Nicholas had asked.

“Where’d you get all of these?” Seiji asked as he situated himself against the wall, a blanket pulled up around him. Nicholas laughed, tugging several more from the mess and dropping them on Seiji.

“When I spilled chocolate milk on my comforter, Sandra—she works here, I don’t know if—,”

“I know her,” Seiji interrupted.

“Well, she showed me where the extra linens are kept so I had something for the night,” Nicholas explained. “She says students can take extras so I’m borrowing. Here, hold these.”

Seiji found two thermoses being thrust into his hands before Nicholas left the tent and turned out the light. The sun was fully up outside but the tent offered some degree of darkness. When Nicholas returned, it was with his computer, which he set up on a stack of pillows between them. After he’d put on a movie, Nicholas slid right into the bed next to Seiji without any hesitation and took back one thermos, opening it to reveal steaming hot chocolate. Seiji must have taken even longer in the shower than he’d thought if Nicholas had had time to go to the kitchens _and_ fetch extra comforters.

The movie had snow in it and was horribly cheesy. Not the sort of movie Seiji generally watched but he was finally feeling warm under a mountain of blankets with Nicholas and sipping hot chocolate from his thermos. It was nice. Just like fencing—if it could even be called that—in the snow had been fun. Nicholas was proving to have a special talent for making Seiji like things he didn’t typically enjoy.

“Hey,” Nicholas said as the couple on the screen skated around a rink. “So…that kiss, did it mean anything?”

The mention of it made Seiji fight against a flush. Today had been a supremely strange day. He’d have absolutely refused to believe he would kiss Nicholas if he’d been told last night about what the morning held. It would have been laughable, the idea that he’d want to do such a thing.

Nicholas was waiting for an answer.

“And all the effort you went to for this,” Seiji said instead of providing one, “does that mean anything?”

“Are you kidding me?” Nicholas laughed. He did that a lot. Seiji was starting to really like the sound of it. “Do you have any idea how badly I want to impress a boy to pull out forts and hot chocolate? Yeah. It means something.”

Seiji nodded.

“Then,” Nicholas pressed, “are we gonna try this?”

“It won’t be easy. If we do.” Seiji couldn’t help the pragmatic warning from escaping his thoughts and hanging in the air between them.

“No, probably not,” Nicholas agreed, surprising Seiji both for the fact that he was agreeing and for the chipper way he did so.

“It’s a terrible idea,” Seiji continued. He wasn’t sure why. Wasn’t sure what it was he wanted Nicholas to say.

“Terrible ideas aren’t always wrong ideas. Hard doesn’t mean impossible.”

That might have been it. What Seiji had been wanting to hear. He nodded again, slowly, pretending to be watching the movie.

“Alright. We can try it.”

“No breaking up with me just because you get mad, okay?”

“I could say the same to you.”

“Let’s make a rule. No breaking up until a minimum of twenty-four hours after a fight. Cool-down time.”

“Surprisingly reasonable,” Seiji acknowledged.

It didn’t feel different. It wasn’t a huge or momentous change to this— _this,_ the right here and right now—but it changed the larger context of everything between them. Everything they’d built between them in the past months. It wouldn’t be easy to tear down and rebuild and change everything that wasn’t suited to this. To the way they wanted things to be between them.

Nicholas’s fingers laced into his and Seiji was embarrassed with how much the movement surprised him. How obviously it did.

“Sorry,” Nicholas said. “Is this okay?”

“Yes, it’s fine. I’m just…not used to it.”

“Holding hands?”

“And the idea of liking you,” Seiji admitted carefully. He wasn’t sure if Nicholas would change his mind about trying this if he knew that Seiji hadn’t even considered the idea before today. Something about Nicholas’s joy had caught him and wrapped him up and, without thinking, he’d acted on that second-hand joy. It had been such a long time since Seiji had let go. Since he’d laughed like he had today.

“You’ll get used to it soon,” Nicholas decided, unperturbed by how fast they were advancing considering that Seiji was certain they’d both woken up this morning without so much as particularly friendly feelings towards each other, much less romantic ones.

“Possibly,” Seiji said, eyes still lingering on their held hands. The weirdest part was how right it felt. How easily this could become normal. “You _did_ build me a fort.”

“Exactly! I could build you a snow fort too, I’m really good at those.”

“No,” Seiji said, pulling their mess of blankets tighter against him, “no more snow. I’ve been plenty cold enough for one day already.”

“You want to spend the whole rest of our _snow_ day inside?”

“Yes, I thought that was implied. You seriously want to go back outside?”

“Not anymore,” Nicholas’s leg pressed against Seiji’s. Was it his imagination or had Nicholas gotten much closer than he’d been a couple moments ago? “We can build snow forts this weekend instead.”

“Not likely.”

“Definitely. But today can be an inside day.”

It wasn’t Seiji’s imagination, Nicholas _was_ inching closer. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. And Seiji had to admit that he hadn’t been paying attention to the movie, more interested in Nicholas than the computer.

“And we still have so much of the day left.”

“I know. Lots of time for movies.”

“We’ll need more hot chocolate.”

"I'll make a cocoa run. Are we good on blankets? We don't want you overfilling your coldness quota."

"If we were in one of the terrible movies you'll likely subject me to today, I'd ask you to keep me warm instead."

"I thought I already was."

Nicholas was as close now as it was possible for him to be, his face only inches from Seiji’s, their voices no more than trailing whispers as soft as snowfall. It would be so easy to press their lips together. For the second time that day, Seiji followed the impulse to kiss Nicholas Cox, and this time was even better than the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading my fluff 💜💜💜 and happy holidays!


End file.
